“So, let’s recap. The medium-term deficit problem was created by Bush tax cuts and by an unfunded Bush-era expansion of Medicare. The long-term deficit problem is all about Medicare. Yet the only solution that Republicans can think of is reducing spending–but not Medicare spending. Of course, this shouldn’t surprise us; Mitch McConnell gave us this, after all:*”

(Via The Baseline Scenario.)

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

(Via Politico.com.)

McCaughey gets her rear end handed to her. This is what happens when someone demands an actual answer to a question.

Technorati Tags:
healthcare reform

“A few readers alerted us to the fact that a state representative in North Carolina, Rep. Curtis Blackwood, published a version of the e-mail in a newsletter to constituents, telling them that while going through e-mail, he came across ‘some interesting information on the Democrats’ big health care bill, H.R. 3200. … While this is federal legislation and not state, the topic is of enough significance that I thought many of you would be interested in reading it.’ We’d refer Rep. Blackwood to our special report on viral messages titled, ‘That Chain E-mail Your Friend Sent to You Is (Likely) Bogus. Seriously.’
We can trace the origins of this collection of claims to a conservative blogger who issued his instant and mostly mistaken analyses as brief ‘tweets’ sent via Twitter as he was paging through the 1,017-page bill. The claims have been embraced as true and posted on hundreds of Web sites, and forwarded in the form of chain e-mails countless times. But there’s hardly any truth in them.”

(Via FactCheck.org.)

And this is why I said that the GOP leadership is behaving in a fashion devoid of morals, truth, and decency. A congressman, with access to the actual bill and the staff to read it, sends a chain email (!) from a conservative blogger, one with a reading comprehension problem, to his constituents. Now that’s constituent service for you.

(Via Media Matters.)

Now they are just straight lying. How can this network have any credibility?

“Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now ‘palling around,’ or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.”

(Via CNN Political Ticker.)

Palin supporters call her “real.” My question is: Real what? Nasty? Liar? Honorless? A candidate for the presidency with terrorists? I can’t even say it without laughing.

“Palin claims Alaska ‘produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.’ That’s not true.
Alaska did produce 14 percent of all the oil from U.S. wells last year, but that’s a far cry from all the ‘energy’ produced in the U.S.
Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And if by ‘supply’ Palin meant all the energy consumed in the U.S., and not just produced here, then Alaska’s production accounted for only 2.4 percent.”

(Via FactCheck.org.)

I sure hope Obama gets his a$$ in gear and stops letting these people get away with public bald faced lies. The media is impotent in the face of it.

“A McCain-Palin ad has FactCheck.org calling Obama’s attacks on Palin ‘absolutely false’ and ‘misleading.’ That’s what we said, but it wasn’t about Obama.
Our article criticized anonymous e-mail falsehoods and bogus claims about Palin posted around the Internet. We have no evidence that any of the claims we found to be false came from the Obama campaign.
The McCain-Palin ad also twists a quote from a Wall Street Journal columnist. He said the Obama camp had sent a team to Alaska to ‘dig into her record and background.’ The ad quotes the WSJ as saying the team was sent to ‘dig dirt.’
Update, Sept. 10: Furthermore, the Obama campaign insists that no researchers have been sent to Alaska and that the Journal owes them a correction.”

(Via FactCheck.org.)

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, then blind them with …

“McCain’s new ad puts another stitch in what we’ve called his pattern of deceit on Obama’s tax plan. This one claims Obama and congressional Democrats plan to push forward ‘painful tax increases on working American families’ and that they will bring about ‘years of deficits,’ ‘no balanced budgets’ and ‘billions in new government spending.’ 
The ad is plain wrong about higher taxes on working families. In fact, Obama’s economic plan would produce a tax cut for the majority of American households, with middle-income earners benefiting most. As for ‘years of deficits,’ exactly the same claim could be made about McCain’s program. It’s unlikely either Obama or McCain would balance the budget, and both are projected to increase the debt by trillions.”

(Via FactCheck.org.)

I guess McCain learned Bush’s lesson political campaigns. He said in an interview, “If you tell a lie often enough, people will start to believe it.”

“In Eugene, Ore., Saturday. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., attempted to change the measure by which anyone might assess who criticized the Iraq war first, her or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., by saying those keeping records should start in January 2005, when Obama joined the Senate. (A measure that conveniently avoids her October 2002 vote to authorize use of force against Iraq at a time that Obama was speaking out against the war.) She claimed that using that measure, she criticized the war in Iraq before Obama did.
But Clinton’s claim was false.”

(Via Political Punch.)

Is it me or is Hillary turning into George Bush in Democrat drag? This isn’t even a clever misleading lie half-truth. It’s an easy fact check call. Wow. Talk about looking desperate.